Lawyer Network News

Alberta Lawyer News

Calgary immigration lawyer asks CBSA to be humane to client

Bjorn Harsanyi, an immigration lawyer in Calgary, is asking the Canada Border Service Agency (CBSA) to help his client, Aida Castilla Romero, to return to her native country of Mexico by land.

Romero's work permit has expired and although she is willing to go home, she is afraid to get on a plane because she fears her lungs might collapse due to a rare disease that she has been diagnosed with.

Because of her health condition, Romero's lungs had collapsed a year after she came to Canada to work. While getting treatment, the terms of Romero's work permit ended. She was refused an extension and was denied a refugee status and eventually received a deportation order.

Cautioned by a doctor against flying as it would cause her lungs to collapse again; Romero through Harsanyi asked the CBSA to allow her to go back to Mexico by land. This, however, was denied too.

Harsanyi is appealing for the CBSA to help his client get a visa so she can travel to Mexico by land passing through the US as this is within the agency's capabilities.

There has been no word yet from the CBSA and Romero fears that she would be forced to board a plane when the deportation date arrives, least she would get arrested again which is what happened when her lawyer had informed the CBSA of her growing fears. They had deemed she would not get on her deportation flight.

Calgary defence lawyer says client was wrongly accused

Sandoval-Barillas is on trial for allegedly sexually assaulting a then 16-year-old girl October of 2013 close to the Rundle LRT station. He has also been accused of threatening her with a weapon.

Milczarek told the jury that the victim is accusing his client whom she did see at the LRT Station minutes before the assault happened.

The lawyer further added that because the victim was intoxicated, she had wrongly assumed that it was his client who had assaulted her but that it wasn't him and someone else.

However, the crown prosecutor has contradicted Milczarek's defense of his client and said that Sandoval-Barillas' claim that he had left the station a few minutes after the victim did to get a cab and not to follow and assault her, was not believable.

A video taken by surveillance cameras had the two taking a train at the Whitehorn station.

The case has been submitted to the jury for deliberation.

Defence lawyer to oppose forfeiture of client's bail

Posted Jan 08, 2016 on www.calgarysun.com

Calgary criminal defence lawyer Gavin Wolch is adamant that the Court has no right to hand over the bail money of his convicted client, Nicholas Rasberry, to the Crown.

Rasberry was convicted of manslaughter for stabbing to death Craig Kelloway in May of 2013. The two were drinking before the incident.

Rasberry was originally charged with murder but it was downgraded to manslaughter because the judge found that Rasberry was prompted into killing Kelloway, whom he said tried to sexually assault him.

However, before Rasberry could be sentenced, he had breached one of the conditions of his bail, that is consuming alcohol. He was caught during a Checkstop.

Hersh Wolch, a defence lawyer practicing in Winnipeg, said the forfeiture proceedings should not be allowed because Rasberry was not on bail anymore when the Crown filed the application as he had been sentenced already.

Gavin Wolch wants to get the matter done and over with because he says his client is seeking another bail as he will be appealing the verdict.

Frying pan death suspect mentally cleared to face trial

Posted Jun 26, 2015 on www.calgarysun.com

The trial for the 2012 death of Gatleak Thor Metkurjock will now proceed after the suspect has been declared as mentally fit to stand trial following a psychiatric assessment.

The suspect, who was 17 years old at the time of the incident, is facing second-degree murder charges for allegedly bashing Thor Metkurjock in the head with a frying pan.

At that time, Thor Metkurjock and the suspect was attending a house party. The victim had passed out drunk and was being brought out. He had woken up and was belligerent so the suspect allegedly got a frying pan and hit him with it.

Canada Lawyer News

Man who attacks several women in Terwillegar gets 12-year prison term

Posted Jan 29, 2016 on edmontonjournal.com

Mark Moriarty, who has been terrorizing women in the Terwillegar area in Edmonton, will be spending 12 years in prison after pleading guilty to a total of 17 charges, the most serious of which is sexual assault.

The 12-year sentence was closer to what Tania Holland, prosecutor for the Crown, asked which was 15 and a half years.

This was countered by Steve Fix, a criminal defence lawyer in Edmonton representing Moriarty who asked for no more than between eight to 10 years saying that his client could still redeem himself and blaming his actions to his addiction to cocaine.

Moriarty had shown remorse for his crime, however, it seems that the victims' statements had more impact collectively describing the attacks as horrible and pointing out what a manipulator Moriarty was.

The charges stemmed from attacks on eight victims, the youngest of which was a girl aged 14 years old, from 2012 to 2014.

45YO meted with 5-year prison term for severely beating girlfriend

Posted Jan 28, 2016 on www.edmontonsun.com

Peter Joseph Poirier received a sentence of five years for severely beating his girlfriend twice in what has been described as a very extreme case of domestic violence.

Poirier, 45, however, only has two years and a half left to serve after he was credited for the time he spent in custody during the trial.

According to Edmonton lawyer Darin Slaferek, his 45-year-old client grew up to a father who constantly abused his mother.

Court heard that Poirier's acts were fueled by his jealousy of other men. Aside from mauling his girlfriend, he also threatened to kill her and himself and even detained her for a few days.

The girlfriend was finally able to escape from Poirier's clutches when he fell asleep.

By then she was already nursing several injuries including fractures to the skull and a bleeding brain, aside from the bruises all over her body.

Woman jailed for fraud amounting to about half a million dollars

Posted Jan 27, 2016 on www.edmontonsun.com

Holly Jean Cardinal was meted with a three-year prison term following her guilty plea of having stolen $260,000 from a veterinary clinic wherein she was working as an administrator.

However, the Guardian Veterinary Centre was not the only employer that the 54-year-old Cardinal stole from because while she was working there, she was also undergoing trial for having embezzled $296,000 from her previous employer, the Allen Services and Contracting Ltd, where she had been working as a bookkeeper for a long time.

The judge found it aggravating that Cardinal continued to commit fraud with her new employer while she was undergoing trial for the same crime she committed from her previous employer.

In fact, she had pleaded guilty to those charges on the day she was asked by the vet clinic to leave under the suspicion that she was stealing from them.

The vet office, however, could not nail her for embezzlement for lack of evidence.

Cardinal confessed to stealing from the vet clinic while she was serving her sentence for her first fraud conviction.

Walter Raponi, a criminal lawyer in Edmonton, said that Cardinal resorted to stealing from her employers after she turned to gambling following a relationship that became abusive.

Custody ends for young murder convict

Posted Mar 27, 2015 on www.therecord.com

A young man, who was convicted for second-degree murder, will soon be integrated back into the community as he starts with the next phase of his sentence which is community supervision.

The youth was sentenced to a little less than two years in jail and a five-year community supervision for the stabbing death of Larry McDonald, 49.

The convict, who is now 21 years old, cannot be named as he was only 16 when he stabbed McDonald several times in the back.

The victim was trying to intervene in an argument between the youth and his older girlfriend.

A report showed how the youth has been making progress in changing for the better by taking part in all rehabilitative programs available for him while in jail.

As soon as he gets out of jail, he will live with his mother and has to abide by various conditions including a curfew.

Kitchener defence lawyer Craig Parry said the youth understands that his return to society will not be easy considering that he had spent about five years of his life in custody. He had previously spent about three years in jail while his case had gone through the court.

Woman sentenced to prison for injecting silicone into other women's butts

Posted Mar 26, 2015 on www.vicnews.com

Marilyn Reid received an eight-year prison sentence for using silicone oil in performing butt lifts on her women clients without their knowledge.

Earlier in January, Reid had submitted a guilty plea to eight counts of aggravated assault.

According to the sentencing judge, Reid put the lives of her clients in danger without thought to their safety because she was only thinking of the profit that she would be getting.

Reid deceived her clients by promising them that she would be injecting PMMA, a substance that could only be acquired through the black market anyway because it is not approved for cosmetic surgery by Health Canada.

Four of Reid's five victims suffered serious injuries. Medical practitioners also had a hard time in treating them because they had no idea what was injected into their butts.

The Crown had asked for between 10 to 12-year sentence while Toronto lawyer Calvin Barry countered with 30 months.

Reid, however, will only be serving a little more than five years because the judge credited the time that she had spent in custody.